Active listening is one of the important soft skills in several aspects of life, especially communication. Effective communication is highly dependent on a person’s skills in sending and receiving messages. Then what is active listening? Why is active listening important? Let’s look at the following explanation.
Active listening means listening with full attention to what is being said, with the main goal of fully understanding what the other person is talking about. According to the International Coaching Federation, active listening definition is the ability to focus on what the speaker is saying or not saying in order to fully understand the context of speaker’s understanding and to support the speaker’s self-expression. In other words, you really pay attention to what other person says. This ability is very useful in a wide variety of situations, ranging from therapy sessions to the world of work.
Moreover, active listening means using all your senses and giving all your attention to the other people. Here are some tips to do if you want to be an active listener.
- Listen and visualize what the other person has to say – A focused brain will be able to visualize the other person’s words.
- Ask when there is a pause – When you don’t understand something, you will ask it. In this case, asking during a pause is more polite than interrupting.
- Give feedback – Feedback, both speech and body language, that’s relevant to what people say will show you understand the conversation. If their feelings are hidden or unclear, you can paraphrase them.
Active Listening Skills to Bring Good Relationship
Active listening skills are the ability to focus on the speakers, understand their message or information, as well as respond to the message conveyed with seriousness. The importance of listening is that it helps the speakers feel comfortable sharing information or stories with you. If you are able to apply the ability to sincerely listen actively, people will increase their interest in continuing to communicate with you.
When they can convey what they have to say without coercion, interruption, and judgment, they will tend to be more open to you. With this situation, it means you have provided a relationship based on trust through active listening.
Learn New Things from Active Listening
Good listening skills require an open and curious mindset. Usually, when other people tell stories, it is likely the things that are told are problems and experiences that have been passed. This helps you to be able to find out new things, new knowledge and understandings that have never been obtained before. This is one of the benefits your get because you try to put yourself through a different perspective.
By listening to many stories from other people, besides being an experience, you also have a good active listening psychology. We all need to be heard by those closest to us, how wrong or right, and how reasonable or not. A good conversation will bring a good effect, and it surely contributes to the growth of good relationship quality.